Chan issues statement, doesn’t release it to EN

Councilwoman Elisa Chan issued a statement Monday morning in response to a significant media coverage over the weekend. But her communications staffer responsible for getting the statement to the media outlets did not provide it to the Express-News.

The Chan storm began Thursday night when Express-News columnist Brian Chasnoff’s Friday piece went live on expressnews.com. The column exposed homophobic comments made by Chan during a District 9 staff meeting. Since then, there’s been intense coverage from the Express-News, local television and radio, and some national outlets.

On Friday, we requested a response from Chan’s communications chief, Roger LeGrand. But Chan remained silent throughout the weekend. Then, on Monday, KENS-TV and KSAT both received Chan’s release.

Here’s what the TV stations are reporting she said:

“The comments from the staff meeting on May 21 were and are my personal opinions and thoughts as guaranteed to me by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is unfortunate that a former member of my District 9 Council team betrayed the trust of my staff members and me. I will fight, I will always fight for our freedom of speech especially in a private setting. I plan to hold a press conference this week to address this issue.”

We reached LeGrand on his cell phone Monday and asked if he would provide us with a copy of the statement. He responded that he couldn’t get it to us later in the day because he was traveling. We inquired why we didn’t get the release this morning as KENS and KSAT did.

“I’m sorry,” LeGrand said. “I just provided it to a limited list of people who had contacted me on Friday.”

We reminded him that we’d asked for it on Friday and again inquired why we hadn’t gotten the release Monday morning.

“Thank you for your help,” he said. “I’ll be happy to send it to you when I get back to a computer.”

Perhaps when LeGrand gets back to a computer, he should also ask his boss for technology that allows him to disseminate a four-sentence response from a smart phone.